The move to a private server seems to have gone okay, I did wake up to a continuing nightmare at 7 am after being on the phone with the host until 2am so I was as you might imagine not a happy camper.   There may be a glitch or two in the next few hours as the new name servers propagate across the net.

As for the suggestions for “redundancy” that already exists.  TSP is actually hosted on three different servers, this is why you will notice different domains such as thesurvivalpodcast.com and survivalpodcast.net  but the podcast system must point to a single location, I can change it which is how I was able to make new shows available during the down time last night.  It is also why even though the podcast would not download the blog here was up, the forum was up, the members brigade was up, the only down time we experienced in all of this was the ability for the audio files to be downloaded.

I am really not happy with how Host Gator handled this so far, I have requested that a higher up contact me to make the issue right, I will let you know what they do to make that happen or fail to do so you can make your own decisions going forward if you have any hosting needs.

To those who have suggested that this action is some sort of “conspiracy” against prepper type sites due to what occurred with SSHomestead (Johnny Max and The Queen) wad up your foil hat and throw the sucker away.  Johnny was using a totally different host.  He contacted me about his issues and asked me to recommend a host.  I actually suggested he talk to HostGator, because the have been stellar up till last night.  Johnny however is seeking a lower cost solution from what I understand using torrents.

I am committed to providing to quality to all of you, that is why I was happy to upgrade the service with the existing host.  My real issues with them have been

1.  Blocked the audio files with ZERO prior warning on a Friday night at 7:20 PM

2.  I was promised by IM Chat the account would be upgraded before the night ended at about 8:00 PM, I ended up on the phone to 4 different people to get it to actually happen and didn’t get to bed until 2:00 AM

3.  They sent me a very confusing email after the move about how to browse the new site when a URL with an ip would have actually made it easy to do.  I still do not understand this email and would expect most normal customers wouldn’t either.

My overall rating so far, bad and good.  While they totally screwed me I have to say they dealt pretty good with me as I was pretty damn angry and got progressively angrier as the night went on.  They also did answer the phone, did make the problem a priority, etc.  They remind me of mildly competent government, as they were reasonably good at fixing a problem they themselves created.

That said all I have requested is that someone with some authority at HostGator contact me and assure me that this will not happen again, that if I approach any type of threshold that their sales people do their jobs and simply contact me with something along the lines of “Dear VALUED Customer, your account is approaching a threshold, please consider upgrading your service with us”.

I will let you know what happens,

Jack